


Gunshot

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 07:06:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17219237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: “I don’t like it, Jack.” David held the long hunting gun gingerly in his hands, and he tried to envision Jack using it.





	Gunshot

“I don’t like it, Jack.” David held the long hunting gun gingerly in his hands, and he tried to envision Jack using it. As a boy, Jack had had an uncanny way of imagining himself in the place of animals, and even inanimate objects. He’d find ways to give water to the cart horses he met, while talking about what a bum deal they had, dragging heavy carriages around in the hottest sun, and the heaviest reign. _It’s harder for them than us_ , he’d say. _At least we gets to go where we pleases.._ One time, David had gone to the lodging house to find Jack trying to care for a puppy with more fleas on it than flesh, and Jack wouldn’t hear a word about abandoning the animal; he’d demanded to know what David would do with him if he had fleas. At least when they were back in New York, Jack had never made much distinction between animals and people, so why would he have something used for shooting coyotes and buffalo?

As if he was reading David’s mind, Jack took the gun away from him, and pointed it out the window. There was a little fence with three cans placed in intervals along it, far enough away so that David could just make them out. Beyond that, the desert seemed to stretch out in every direction. Jack took aim, and fired.

David didn’t see if he’d hit the target. He jumped back in surprise at how loud the gun was, and then Jack was laughing, and throwing his arm around him. “It’s really something, ain’t it,” Jack said, punching David in the shoulder, his grin insatiable, and suddenly young. “Let me show you what else I got…”

That’s how David ended up on the grand tour of the little shack Jack was living in. It was only one room, barely even big enough to be called that, but it held an array of small treasures – Boots, and pistols, and a lasso, and a hat with a bull emblazoned on it. It felt like entering a prop department where they would prepare for Jack’s childhood fantasies to be staged.

David was tired and dusty from twelve days spent on a train. The air here was so dry that it stung, and the sun really was bigger, just like Jack had said. David couldn’t help but think that he’d wandered back into Jack’s story at some midway point, with things he didn’t know and things he had missed as numerous as the grains of sand that surrounded them. David wondered where he would fit into all this.


End file.
